At the
Andover Shop you will find various weights of cashmere, lambswool and Shetland
tweed jackets woven exclusively to our specific style, pattern and colorings
and are only found at our three locations - Andover, Boston, and Cambridge.
As the
result of fifty-three years of retail knowledge, our three shops require
slightly modified marketing levels due to the particular local geographic
taste, either an urban character (Boston and Cambridge) or a more country or
natural market environment as in our Andover store. If a particular item is not
available at one of our stores, it is only a phone call or twenty-four hours
away.
Our most
active in-store department (a garment completely hand constructed in store) or
made-to-your-measure service (alterations made in the cutting of the garment
from pattern) can duplicate your favorite piece of clothing or accommodate your
exact measurements and styling.
This past
year, in addition to Scotland and Ireland, we have also traveled to Inis Meain,
one of the Aran Islands located thirty miles off the west coast of Ireland. We
were intrigued by the sweaters produced there - a distinct change from the
traditional handknits which in the past have used only heavy and oily yarns.
These new sweaters, for both men and women, use yarns in the softest alpaca and
merino wool, silk, linen, and cashmere. These sweaters were inspired by and
reflect the tastefully subdued colors of the island and cater to the ultimate
sophisticated international tastes. Selections of these sweaters are shown on
our website.
22 Holyoke
Street
Cambridge,
MA 02138
info@theandovershop.com
617-876-4900
The Andover
Shop, a Harvard Square salon for jazz artists and literati, is up for sale
By Janelle
Nanos Globe Staff,April 18, 2018, 8:01 p.m.
Sales
associate Charlie White waited for customers at The Andover Shop in Harvard
Square. The shop opened in Cambridge in 1953.MATTHEW J. LEE/GLOBE STAFF
CAMBRIDGE —
For elegant, turned-out men of a certain age, there’s nowhere better to be seen
than the Saturday morning salons at The Andover Shop.
The Harvard
Square menswear store, housed in a handsome mid-century modern building on
Holyoke Street, has a coveted clientele — not that its longtime proprietor,
92-year-old Charlie Davidson, would ever be so indiscreet as to reveal their
identities.
Instead, it
is they who speak of Charlie, dropping his name as a kind of code or secret
handshake that denotes an insider status.
At Ted
Kennedy’s funeral, the eulogies referenced good times spent at The Andover
Shop. Davidson outfitted Miles Davis in his suits during his preppy, Ivy League
days, and jazz trumpeter Chet Baker once called Davidson his best friend. To
George Frazier, the Globe columnist known for his panache, Davidson was a man
who embodied the term duende, an Andalusian Spanish term synonymous with class.
So it sent
ripples through the duende-sphere this month when a posting on the blog
Ivy-Style revealed that The Andover Shop was looking for a buyer. The store has
two locations, the one in Cambridge, which opened in 1953, and its original
location, which opened in 1948 in Andover and is run by Davidson’s brother-in-law,
Virgil Marson. Both the buildings and the businesses are up for sale. George
Nanis, the real estate broker handling the deal, said he’s hoping for $5
million and has fielded inquiries from as far as California, Texas, and Canada.
The goal, he said, is to find a buyer willing to operate the stores much as
they’ve always been run.
That will
likely be a challenge, Nanis admits. While Davidson’s and Marson’s advanced
ages played a role in their decision to sell, the store has struggled in the
past few years. Some of that trouble may be attributed to shifting trends, as
it’s been a while since bowties were really in vogue and any brick-and-mortar
retailer must now contend with Amazon.
But
Davidson and his employees are also wrestling with a far more difficult
problem. The shop thrived for more than 60 years in part due to its proximity
to Harvard, but that proximity has also been the root of its recent decline. As
the university has overhauled the Smith Campus Center on the adjacent block,
making the zone around the shop a major construction site, sales have
plummeted.
It’s led The
Andover Shop and other nearby retailers to argue that the university should
have done more to help support them through the construction, which started in
2016 and is scheduled to end this fall. The Classic Restaurant Concepts group,
which opened and subsequently closed the
En Boca tapas restaurant down the block from The Andover Shop eight months
later, is suing the university for breach of contract, fraud, negligent
misrepresentation, and other violations, saying that Harvard knowingly entered
into a lease without disclosing the extent of its construction plans.
Construction
is ongoing near The Andover Shop in Harvard Square.JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
A Harvard
University spokeswoman said the university does not comment on pending
lawsuits. “The Smith Center project went through a significant public approval
process, including more than 30 public meetings. Since then, Harvard’s
mitigation office has worked closely with all abutting businesses and residents
to help minimize any disruptions to the extent possible,” Brigid O’Rourke said
in an e-mail.
When it’s
complete, the Smith Campus Center will be the “dynamic center of University
life,” according to its promotional materials. But getting there has been
disruptive. Retailers have had to operate while traffic has been barred on
Holyoke and Dunster streets for over two years, leaving customers with limited
parking options and would-be foot traffic to tangle with cranes, dust, and
incessant noise, according to store employees.
“It’s sort
of a nightmare,” said The Andover Shop’s Harvard Square manager, Larry Mahoney,
who complained that his interactions with the university’s appointed mitigation
officer often fell on deaf ears. “It appears he’s been hired to keep us all
quiet.”
Sales at
The Andover Shop were down 20 to 30 percent due to the construction, or about
$300,000 a year in lost revenue, according to Tim Sullivan, the shop’s
financial overseer, who first became a customer in the 1960s, hitchhiking in
from Lowell as a teen. “It’s very significant when you’re losing that much
business a year,” he said. “It’s been painfully unfair, and they just don’t
care.”
The plight
of The Andover Shop has been shared by other nearby retailers, which say
they’ve watched sales decline as the university pressed forward with its
construction project.
George
Papalimberis, owner of the 120-year-old La Flamme Barber Shop on Dunster
Street, has seen a 20 percent drop in business and said he’s been barely able
to keep his nine chairs full during construction.
He and
others argue that the university could have done more to compensate local
businesses for losses experienced during the construction. Denise Jillson,
executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association, said the
university’s construction company came to an agreement with the City of
Cambridge to cover the revenue lost from parking meters along Holyoke and
Dunster streets. She pushed to use those funds or to create a similar escrow
account to help nearby businesses recoup their losses, but to little avail.
“It was
clear from the beginning that the scope of the project was likely to have an
impact on the businesses,” she said. “I don’t think a business can properly
prepare for that, particularly a small business like The Andover Shop or a new
business like En Boca.”
Harvard
officials stressed that the construction was nearing completion and that the
university had done its part to minimize disruptions.
“The Smith
Center will be a state-of-the-art campus center that will contribute to the
vibrancy of Harvard Square,” said O’Rourke, the Harvard spokeswoman. “The
enhanced public spaces, new local retail tenants, and diverse programming will
ensure that the Smith Center becomes a destination that attracts additional
visitors and residents to the area.”
Davidson’s
wide circle of friends, which include jazz greats and professorial legends,
literati and sports icons, hope that The Andover Shop will still be part of
that vibrancy by the time the building is completed.
“There are
echoes of your past that you stumble across and you feel a level of comfort.
You walk into The Andover Shop and it hasn’t changed,” said Geoffrey Precourt,
a longtime editor who frequented Davidson’s salons back in their 1970s heyday.
“It’s more than blazers and khakis.”
Davidson,
ever the gentleman, demurred when it came to discussing construction concerns.
"Having
a business like The Andover Shop meant I never once felt like I was going to
work,” he said through an e-mail provided by his daughter. “I was in Harvard
Square when the Holyoke Center was built. Now it’s the Smith Center. We have
evolved with our customers.”
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